Blog

Having been deeply engaged in the professional coaching
field for over 20 years, I have been a student, teacher and trainer of multiple
competencies, frameworks, models, and practices each aimed at improving a
coach’s capability to become a master listener, reflector, questioner, communicator
and change partner. Each of these
pedagogies can be traced to years of painstaking research rooted in
professional disciplines such as psychology, education, management theory,
neuroscience, and adult education – to name a few!

A Research Experiment

One of my research experiments in coaching has sprung from
the field of improvisation. Before
landing upon coaching, my career journey spontaneously bumped along its merry
way – from resort hotel desk clerk to an international MBA degree to Texas
Trust Officer to conservatory trained actor to New York City instructor of improvisational
theatre. Improvisation held an 8-year space in my world
before crossing into the field of coaching.
From that time, I have made intermittent inquiries into bridging backgrounds:
how could I bring the discovery, spontaneity and power of improvisation to
coaching? How could coaching be
simplified in such a way so that people who study coaching be able to sense
more sharply, listen more deeply, question more concisely, message more meaningfully
and become more present?

In Three Words

When I taught theatrical improvisation in New York, I discovered
another form of improvisation that was not the typical fare of comedy improv
which often focused on being fast (pacing), furious (high energy) and funny
(make the audience laugh). In the scenes
that I directed, a wonderous new world of improvisation opened in oppositional
aspects which embraced going slow (cadence), being centered (stillness) and heightening
the dramatic (attending to the truth and moments of tension that existed
between two players). One way to bring
these improvised scenarios to life was to ask the players to play the scene,
though limit all verbal communications between one another to just three words
– no more, no less. What ensued were
scenes no longer filled with frenetic moves, extraneous dialog or imposed
narrative, but instead, emergent theatrical moments in time which offered
idiosyncratic behavior, intriguing subtext, and deeper truths. You could not have scripted what we saw
created spontaneously between individuals on the levels of dramatic intensity,
unrestricted play and vulnerable transmission of the human condition. Simple three-word phrases took on nuanced and
metaphorical meaning which stirred the intrapersonal and interpersonal
relationship. Three- word responses
tapped into cognitive, emotional and somatic significance: “I am home.” “There’s something missing.” “You are right.”

Three Word Coach

The three-word concept became my improvisational bridge to
coaching. I began to weave the
three-word scene concept into my speaking and training windows with students of
coaching. In offering public coaching
demonstration sessions at global conferences with me as the ‘Three Word Coach’,
I would begin by telling the volunteer client that I am to start our session by
speaking normally (i.e., no word count restrictions), though eventually, as we
advance the conversation, I will incrementally reduce the number of words I am
using (e.g., from unlimited, to seven to five and then to three). From this initiative, we (me, the client and
the audience) noticed the coach’s move to three words began to increase the aliveness
in the coaching conversation and transform the nature of the relationship. I was offering less, in a simpler way, to
produce more – more time for the client to talk and self-discover, more cogent
communication from the coach, and more truth, spontaneity and organic play within
the coaching partnership. The simplicity
behind of the coach’s contribution seemed to move the conversation forward,
yielding greater impact. For example:
“You seem perplexed.” “What’s your goal?” “Action is beckoning.”

Validated by Google

This is my first blog from a man with three names – David
Matthew Prior. I was Google-validated
today before sitting down to write as I entered in the search bar ‘the power of
three’ and came across: The Rule of Three, or Power
of Three, suggests that things that come in threes are funnier, more
satisfying, more effective, and/or more memorable, than other numbers of
things. Hence, I’m
duly encouraged to bring this world forward a bit more. As the song says, we’ve only just begun.